Last January, long before the coronavirus pandemic paralyzed the country – and Hollywood – the CW gave right-to-series orders to its two strongest candidates for a pilot bakkie, Superman & Lois and Walker. Four months later, the CW handed over direct orders to two more projects, Kung Fu, who made some trials before the production strike in March, and The Republic of Sarah.
In January, with the pandemic still raging amid another deadly spate of infections, the CW is seriously considering not making pilots and instead of taking direct orders, about 3-4, said Mark Pedowitz, chairman and CEO of the network, told Deadline. However, the veteran TV CEO noted that this will not be a seismic change in the broadcast network model at the CW.
“The first part of the answer is: I believe in pilots, I believe you see things in pilots,” he said. “The second part of the answer: we are dealing with a production issue, and you may not have a real opportunity, because it is financially easier to go directly to series. So we can probably go here again, not for any other reason, but to get them going, because you do not know what will happen next; if you believe in a show, you have to keep going. I believe the pilot process should be alive, but it could be a financial issue. ”
Broadcast development is designed to deliver new series that replace the weakest existing networks. Due to the production halt related to pandemic, the CW chose to launch its regular series in January instead of autumn, so that the original series for screenplays is not yet available.
“The challenge for us is that we have not seen anything yet, and we do not know how they are going to perform,” Pedowitz said. ‘I’ll only have a sensation until the end of March, if I have to. But that time we have to order things anyway. ”
Because of all the uncertainty, the CW is expected to bring back the vast majority of its established range, possibly all but the two of which the pending end has been announced. Super girl and Black lightning.
Pedowitz said he is only now starting to get pilot letters and that it is too early to anoint forerunners. Some projects that received early buzz include the production of Greg Berlanti Wonder Girl and another DC drama, Ava DuVernay’s Naomi.
In addition, the CW has two sensational planted spinoffs, the Nancy Drew sprout Tom Swift and Black lightning spinoff Painkiller. The rumors All American spinoff rear-door pilot happens too, I hear.
In addition, 2020 pilots rolled The lost boys, a long-standing passion project for Pedowitz, and Maverick, stay with The 100 prequel, which was introduced on the final season of the mothership series. The network was in talks with HBO Max to possibly collaborate on the project.