Garner's 'Daredevil' role is down but not out

Sunday, March 02, 2003 - Jennifer Garner is resurrecting her "Daredevil" role.

20th Century Fox and production partner Regency Enterprises said Garner will star in a spinoff featuring her Elektra Natchios character, introduced in Ben Affleck's superhero hit "Daredevil."

The Elektra film will be set after events in "Daredevil," in which Garner's character seemingly died. But "Daredevil" ended with a cryptic scene indicating Elektra might have survived.

Garner, 30, played the martial-arts master girlfriend of Affleck's title character, a blind attorney who develops superhuman senses that allow him to become a masked crusader for justice.

"Daredevil" has been the No.1 movie the past two weekends. A "Daredevil" sequel also is in the works.

Garner's ABC action series "Alias" is one of several series the network has renewed for the 2003 fall season. Six comedies - "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter," "According to Jim," "The George Lopez Show," "Less Than Perfect," "Life with Bonnie" and "My Wife and Kids" - will return.

Article form the Denver Post, compiled by Greg Henry.

     Posted 10:13 PM by Sarah  []

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Sunday revival

It's not exactly going out on a limb to call `Six Feet Under' a soap opera for intellectuals. Creator Alan Ball has called the show "`Dynasty' in a funeral home," and Miguel Arteta, who has directed some episodes, refers to it as a "soap opera on acid."

But something has always made it more than that. `Six Feet Under,' which begins its third season tonight on HBO, has always carried a sucker punch. It's a show that, over and over, flirts with the ordinary, setting you up with an opening half-hour that seems like nothing special only to come up with something in the second half that leaves you slack-jawed with surprise. Examples: "Restoration artist" Federico (Freddy Rodriguez) thinks that his wife and his cousin are having an affair and comes home to catch his cousin in the act -- with a man; severely messed-up massage therapist Brenda (Rachel Griffiths) sabotages her relationship with Nate (Peter Krause) by inviting a passerby into her house for anonymous sex.

This season, though, the sucker punch is missing. The show's acting is still exceptional, but its dramatic momentum is skewed. At first, I thought the show had lost its way, trying too hard to top itself, the way critically acclaimed series so often do. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that the opening of tonight's show is one of the most pretentious, annoying things it's ever done, a sign that Ball and his writers painted themselves into a corner and now have to jump their way out.

Some viewers might embrace it, but it will try a lot of people's patience, the way HBO's other marquee shows, `The Sopranos' and `Sex and the City,' tested patience earlier this season. And although `Six Feet Under' gathers momentum -- the fourth episode is a gut-wrenching knockout -- it's yet another sign that HBO is looking vulnerable, especially on the Sunday nights that have been its gold mine during the past few years.

`Six Feet Under,' along with `The Sopranos' and `Sex and the City,' gave HBO an image of being `the' place to be on Sunday nights. But each show takes up only an hour (or in `Sex's' case, a half-hour) of program time, and broadcast networks are not only taking on HBO in the 8 p.m. time slot these days, they're taking advantage by putting much of their best programming on Sundays.

This was a night that, for most of the '90s, was dominated by TV movies and old theatrical movies in the 8 to 10 p.m. slot; a night to which sitcoms such as `Mad About You' and `3rd Rock From the Sun' were exiled in a failed attempt to find viewers; a night that had the occasional cult show (`seaQuest DSV') that had a small loyal audience but otherwise didn't attract much attention.

Now ABC has `Alias' and `Dragnet;' CBS the venerable `60 Minutes' and a string of popular TV movies; NBC a solid lineup with `American Dreams, Law & Order: Criminal Intent' and `Boomtown;' Fox has strong comedies with `The Simpsons,' `King of the Hill' and `Malcolm in the Middle.'

It may be Fox, in fact, instead of HBO, that started the trend toward a better Sunday night, when it moved `The X-Files' from Fridays to Sundays in October 1996. Some observers thought it wouldn't work, but the Sunday move turned the show into Monday-morning conversation fodder, giving fans a way to begin their workweek.

"[Sunday] had been a graveyard for a few years," says Jonathan Prince, co-producer of `American Dreams.' "Everybody stayed away because CBS owned the night and they owned the night largely based on `60 Minutes.' . . . I think Fox, really wisely, said, `OK, we'll go with people who `don't' watch `60 Minutes' and put the smartest sitcom, `The Simpsons,' on the air. And if you watched those first three or four years of `The X-Files,' without a doubt it was the best one-hour television on the air. So Fox suddenly plowed ahead with what was then really innovative television."

The next step in the evolution of Sunday-night programming came in January 1999, when `The Sopranos' debuted on HBO. The crime saga lifted the pay-cable network to a new level of respect among viewers and critics and gave HBO's Sunday night a focal point in the 8 p.m. time slot, which has since become home to such strong offerings as `Sex and the City' (which aired on Saturdays during its 1998 debut season), `Six Feet Under' and the miniseries `Band of Brothers.'

"The HBO programming changed everybody's concept of what Sunday night used to be," Prince says. "Sunday night used to be, watch it with the family, the kids watch the first half of it, they go to sleep, and you watch something else. HBO said, the hell with that, we've got an upscale 18-to-49 audience that's sitting at home waiting to watch something other than the cartoons and comedies on Fox or family programming.

"They went right to the heart of it," Prince continues. "Look at the programming, not just `Sex and the City,' but `The Sopranos,' `Six Feet Under' and `Oz.' That's pretty hard-core programming for Sunday night."

But after four years of dominance, HBO is starting to look vulnerable here. The overrated, overviolent, overeverything `Oz' recently aired its series finale, and `The Sopranos' and `Sex and the City' are reportedly headed toward their final seasons. `Six Feet Under,' which is beginning its third season, is lapsing into the familiar: Big brother Nate (Peter Krause) underwent brain surgery last season in a plotline that recalled Anthony Edwards' swan song on `ER;' gay lovers David and Keith (Michael C. Hall and Mathew St. Patrick) are in couples counseling, a device used frequently on `Ally McBeal' and sent up this season on `Everybody Loves Raymond' and `My Wife and Kids.'

Often, `Six Feet Under' creator Alan Ball -- who was unavailable for an interview -- uses stuff like this to satirize network TV, but in these cases, both the plotlines simply seem to trail off. The dialogue and acting are still a notch or two above most commercial television, but the situations don't explode the way they used to.

On the other hand, Ball and his writers have come up with strong story lines involving surly teen-ager Claire (Lauren Ambrose) and an art teacher, and repressed-but-loosening-up mom Ruth (Frances Conroy), who has new problems with her free-spirited sister (Patricia Clarkson). And the deaths that open each episode come with new twists and continue to give the show emotional weight, especially in the fourth episode, which centers on a pair of longtime gay lovers and Puccini's opera `Turandot.'

Despite `Six Feet Under's' flaws, I still think of it as the best show on television, but it's getting a lot of competition, especially on Sunday night. Three other Sunday shows -- `Alias, American Dreams' and `Boomtown' -- are likely to find a place on my season-end 10-best list. Each has attempted to advance TV's storytelling style -- `Alias' with its long-running, convoluted spy plots (which creator J.J. Abrams retooled beautifully in a post-Super Bowl episode); `American Dreams' by using `American Bandstand' as a focal point for a family drama about '60s social issues; `Boomtown' with its multiple-points-of-view, jigsaw-puzzle plots about Los Angeles cops, paramedics, lawyers and reporters.

If this illustrates how TV programming has become an elaborate chess game, most producers say that they're only pawns in it. In their search for ratings, programmers try to decide what fits where, and right now many of the best shows seem to fit on Sunday night.

"It does seem sort of the night for appointment television," says producer Walon Green, whose updated `Dragnet' is a recent addition to ABC's Sunday schedule. "Viewers who like intelligent programming will look at `60 Minutes' . . . and then once you watch that, you'll probably hang in and see what else is on."

Green cites Sunday's longtime identification as a family night, because NBC aired `Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color' and other series with "Disney" in the title throughout most of the '60s and '70s (Disney-owned ABC now uses a similar strategy, having aired `Wonderful World of Disney' at 6 p.m. Sunday since 1997). In the '80s and the '90s, NBC flailed away with inconsistent programming during that night, finally finding an anchor with `Dateline NBC' in the late '90s.

That began to change last season, when NBC added `Law & Order: Criminal Intent' and the shorter-lived `UC: Undercover' in the 8 and 9 o'clock slots. The `Law & Order' brand -- and star Vincent D'Onofrio, giving the most fascinatingly mannered and eccentric performance on TV -- helped NBC compete against the likes of `The Sopranos' and `Alias.'

"I think part of it, at least in NBC's point of view, is that they wanted more of a presence on that night," says Graham Yost, one the producers of `Boomtown,' which follows `Criminal Intent.' "They got a little bit of a toehold last year with `Law & Order: C.I.,' and they felt that they could build something to lead into it and build something to come out of it."

Although tonight's offerings will also include ABC's much-maligned reality series `I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!,' Sunday has been home this season mainly to scripted shows, with reality programming filling weeknight slots.

"There might be a psychology to that," Yost says. "People getting ready for the week, or quieting down after the weekend, are ready to follow some stories."

And on Monday morning, they're ready to talk about them. Fans of `The Simpsons, Alias' and `The Sopranos' often start their week dissecting the shows, quoting their favorite lines and chatting about scenes and developments they did or didn't like. The premiere of `Six Feet Under' -- especially its first 15 minutes -- will provide plenty of fuel for morning-after conversation. It might even tempt some fans to give up on the show. That would be a mistake; the coming episodes offer multiple pleasures. But even if fans do give up, there are plenty of other places to turn on Sunday night.

Article from the Fort Worth Star Telegram, written by Robert Philpot.

     Posted 10:11 PM by Sarah  []

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Daredevil Spinoff Planned

With the Daredevil movie well on its way to hitting the $100 million mark at the box office, Twentieth Century Fox is wasting no time preparing to milk the franchise for all it’s worth. Yesterday, they confirmed long-standing rumors of an Elektra spin-off, with Jennifer Garner reprising her role as the sultry assassin.

Fox has also given the green light to a Daredevil sequel, and have not ruled out the possibility of Garner’s character appearing in a sequel. This early in the production process, no names or dates have yet been discussed. But keep on the lookout for more Marvel titles making it to the silver screen—this adds another two titles to the still-growing list of comic book movies that have a chance at making it big.

Article from GamePro.

     Posted 1:02 AM by Sarah  []

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'Alias' on a Mission: Recruit More Men
Marketing blitz aims to attract young male viewers to the spy TV show on struggling ABC.

ABC believes it has a secret weapon in Sydney Bristow, the sexy double agent of "Alias."

But the Sunday night drama hasn't been able to penetrate TV's top 25 tier of shows, despite kudos from critics and a cult-like following.

As a result, ABC is planning to throw more money at the program in an unusual marketing blitz. Coming soon: "Alias" DVDs, comic books, action figures, trading cards, video games and even a new cell phone ring tone, all designed to attract more young men to complement a core audience of young women.

"Shows like these are hard to find," said Susan Lyne, entertainment president of ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co. "We'd rather put more time and energy into building this show than take a risk on four others that we might put in that time slot and cross our fingers."

Expanding the audience for "Alias" has never been more important for ABC, which this week finished the February sweeps period in fourth place among total viewers and fourth among those ages 18 to 49 -- the key category watched by Wall Street and Madison Avenue.

Meanwhile, ABC's two stalwart dramas are nearing retirement. "NYPD Blue" is expected to run one more year, and "The Practice" might not last the summer. Four new dramas that ABC rolled out in September were yanked off the air by November.

The effort to draw more male viewers to "Alias" kicked off in January, when the network placed it in the post-Super Bowl berth. During the game, tens of millions of people saw commercials with the show's star, Jennifer Garner, strutting around in attire arguably better suited for a Victoria's Secret catalog than to a TV drama.

There are no guarantees, of course, that the marketing will work. Stacey Lynn Koerner, broadcast research director for advertising-buying firm Initiative Media, questioned whether video games and trading cards would lure new viewers.

"Typically, ancillary products are appealing to people who are already fans of the show," Koerner said.

"There's a whole history of critically acclaimed programs that are loved by pockets of viewers and never take off in a grand scale," she added.

Network executives say they realize that "Alias" merchandise isn't likely to attract hordes of viewers who are in the 18-to-49 age category. But they are hoping to indoctrinate teens "who will soon be in that ... demographic," Lyne said.

A series of "prequel" books have been designed to create a back story to the TV show, while video games and comic books aim to add elements of fantasy and intrigue.

"We're going to introduce a new character in the comic book before we introduce him on the show," said J.J. Abrams, the creator and executive producer of "Alias."

ABC also has been working with Nokia Corp. to produce a cell phone ring that mimics the show's theme song. Central to the sales pitch, especially to young men, is Garner. Positioned as a young, female James Bond, she also currently is staring in the hit movie "Daredevil."

From the beginning, "Alias" has been an enigma. The second-year show, produced by Disney's Touchstone Television unit, aimed to have youth appeal with wild outfits and lots of action. Young women embraced the plot lines and tangled relationships of the characters; Garner poses as a bank employee who secretly works for the CIA alongside her father. But young men didn't stick with the show.

By mid-January, viewership had slipped nearly 9% from the show's first season and was averaging about 9 million viewers an episode. That put it at 75th place in the TV ratings race, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Several months earlier, network executives began meeting with Abrams to figure out how to build a bigger -- and more masculine -- audience.

Abrams offered to unwind some of the dense plots driven by the double-crossing characters. To "relaunch" the series, they quickly trained their sights on ABC's Super Bowl telecast.

It paid off. Some 17 million viewers tuned in to "Alias" after the game, even though the show began at 11 p.m. on the East Coast. Since the Super Bowl, the show's overall audience has shot up by about 15%, with the biggest gains among men 18 to 49.

Lyne said "Alias" has suffered because it doesn't have a strong "lead-in." The network may try next fall to package "Alias" with another younger-skewing show, perhaps on a different night.

"The show has got huge potential," Lyne said. "But it's been frustrating that it hasn't taken off."

Article from the Los Angeles Times, written by Meg James.

     Posted 12:57 AM by Sarah  []

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Garner's Going All The Way

Alias star Michael Vartan is thrilled to be working with beauty Jennifer Garner on the espionage show and predicts great things for his pretty co-star.

Vartan, who plays Michael Vaughn, believes Daredevil star Garner, who plays canny agent Sydney Bristow, has a long and illustrious career ahead of her.

He gushes, "All the casting directors who didn't pick her up before Alias are probably kicking themselves now.

"She's amazing, you just cannot stop watching her. I can see her being the next Julia Roberts. I can see her winning an Oscar.

"But I can also see her three years from now saying, 'I quit' and moving to a farm somewhere and having a family, because ultimately that's the kind of person she is."

Article from Teen Hollywood.

     Posted 12:52 AM by Sarah  []

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