Any news on (pre-)production of Pratchett's "The Watch"?
July 5, 2014 6:30 AM
Is there any new information about The Watch, the Ankh-Morpork based police procedural TV series? In 2012 and early 2013 there was a flurry of mentions, including that they'd started casting (e.g. 1, 2, 3), but I can't find anything more recent than that.
From the Wikipedia article, it sounds very much like this is a show someone would like to happen, but that it's not formally being produced yet.
Usually there are two tiers of development for a TV series. You've got the production company and the network. (Occasionally shows are produced in-house by a network, but that's irrelevant to this case.)
For The Watch, it looks like Pratchett and company have begun developing the idea of adapting it into a TV series, through Pratchett's own production company. Which means precisely zip in terms of it actually being made, since anyone can start their own production company and claim to be developing their own TV show under its auspices. (I have "a production company" with which I "develop" projects, and I'm the definition of a nobody in Hollywood.)
The important thing for The Watch is for it to be picked up by a network. Which it seems hasn't happened.
Re casting, it's possible that a pilot was shot at some point and shopped around to networks, but nobody was interested. It's also possible that nothing has been shot, and the talk of casting is more about "attaching" people for the purposes of ginning up interest in the property.
All of the above said, given the success of Game Of Thrones and the recent announcements of other SF/F novel series being adapted for TV, it's very possible that The Watch will eventually happen.
posted by Sara C. at 4:39 PM on July 5, 2014
Usually there are two tiers of development for a TV series. You've got the production company and the network. (Occasionally shows are produced in-house by a network, but that's irrelevant to this case.)
For The Watch, it looks like Pratchett and company have begun developing the idea of adapting it into a TV series, through Pratchett's own production company. Which means precisely zip in terms of it actually being made, since anyone can start their own production company and claim to be developing their own TV show under its auspices. (I have "a production company" with which I "develop" projects, and I'm the definition of a nobody in Hollywood.)
The important thing for The Watch is for it to be picked up by a network. Which it seems hasn't happened.
Re casting, it's possible that a pilot was shot at some point and shopped around to networks, but nobody was interested. It's also possible that nothing has been shot, and the talk of casting is more about "attaching" people for the purposes of ginning up interest in the property.
All of the above said, given the success of Game Of Thrones and the recent announcements of other SF/F novel series being adapted for TV, it's very possible that The Watch will eventually happen.
posted by Sara C. at 4:39 PM on July 5, 2014
Thanks for the detailed answer Sara C. Something along those lines would've been my guess, but I really don't know enough about the industry to talk sensibly about it.
Not the answer I'd hoped for, of course, but oh well.
posted by metaBugs at 9:38 AM on July 8, 2014
Not the answer I'd hoped for, of course, but oh well.
posted by metaBugs at 9:38 AM on July 8, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Carol Anne at 8:41 AM on July 5, 2014