Fox TV has dropped plans to produce the Hillary Clinton miniseries for NBC Entertainment.
Apparently NBC itself won’t be taking on the production duties of the project either.
We previously reported surprisingly enough that Fox TV Studios — a sister company of Fox News — and NBC were apparently in the early stages of negotiations about the controversial upcoming four-hour TV movie which is to star Diane Lane as the former US Secretary of State.
The deal with Fox TV is now off , however, Deadline Hollywood reports. “The network and the studio had been in preliminary talks with the two sides far apart, and they were never able to bridge the gap on the deal terms. The economics of TV movies and miniseries are challenging, which is why very few production companies take on such programs these days. That includes NBC’s own studio, Universal TV, which would not produce NBC’s longform projects, including Hillary .”
The Republican National Committee voted today to pull its 2016 debates off of both NBC and CNN unless they abandon their planned Hillary Clinton productions given the expectation of fawning coverage of the presumed Democrat presidential candidate.
NBC News Correspondent Chuck Todd previously criticized the idea of his employer doing the biopic last week.
“This miniseries is a total nightmare for NBC News… We know there’s this giant firewall [between the news and entertainment divisions], we have nothing to do with it, we know that we’d love probably to be as critical, or whatever it is going to be, if it comes out. But there’s nothing we can do about it.
Added Todd: “And we’re only going to own the negative because it’s the Clinton people are upset that it’s too tough on them, or negative because the Republicans think it’s this glorification of her — no matter what, only we are going to own it, because people are going to see the peacock and see NBC and see NBC News and think: ‘Well, they can’t be that separate.’ ”
Separately, MSNBC anchor Adrea Mitchell and former Obama aide Robert Gibbs both agreed that the Clinton miniseries is a really bad idea given the timing.
Are you surprised that Fox TV even considered getting involved in the Hillary Clinton miniseries? Do you think that NBC would ever consider making a movie about Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State under George W. Bush?