Tonight was the first FOX TCA press tour introduced by Dana Walden and Gary Newman. The presentations started with a promo reel that began with Cookie Lyon and The Penguin and led through clips from all of FOX’s shows.
We’ll be live-blogging throughout the day, so, enjoy:
Executive Session
There was a lot of talk about the cooperation between the newly-merged FOX TV Studios and the network, allowing Walden and Newman to really build the network with hits like Empire and scheduling and other concerns now under their control.
With news of success, FOX has renewed Gotham, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Empire for next season!
Also coming up, Scream Queens will come from the Glee team of Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, and Brad Falchuk. Lea Michele, Joe Mangianello, Abigail Breslin, Keke Palmer, Ariana Grande, and Jamie Lee Curtis will star. Minority Report will be shot as a pilot with Mark Mylod directing.
Sleepy Hollow can possibly return for a third season with some creative changes to be more episodic, and for Bones, the future will be dependent on deals being made with the series leads, though they are hopeful it will work out.
No current plans for another run of 24, though there have been discussions. Newman does say that it was the right time for Glee to end, and they are proud of what it has been.
Walden and Newman admitted that Red Band Society was a “challenging” show that “didn’t resonate on the air with our audience in the way that we would have hoped.” They did propose to ABC Studios an idea of running additional episodes over the summer for a lower license fee, to which the studio said that didn’t make sense for them.
As 24 has been brought back, they are “hopeful” to bring The X-Files back at some point.
Backstrom
Based on a book by Leif GW Persson, Backstrom stars Rainn Wilson as a detective who is good at solving crimes despite his obnoxious nature. “Hart Hanson really hooked me in,” Wilson says about the Bones showrunner who developed this show for FOX. It was first developed for CBS, who passed, and even Hanson was surprised that the show was indeed shopped elsewhere. Thomas Dekker, Kris Polaha, and Dennis Haysbert also star.
MasterChef Junior
FOX seemed determined to get us all into sugar comas with this presentation, with sweets that look delicious. We put together cake balls and generally made a mess. The kids in Masterchef Junior are incredibly enthusiastic.
The Last Man on Earth
Kristen Schaal is one of the other people to show up on Earth at some point (maybe flashbacks?) in a comedy starring Will Forte. Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were snubbed for The Lego Movie, are the creative forces behind it the show, which looks very funny.
Wayward Pines
M. Night Shyamalan brings Wayward Pines to FOX as a 10-episode event thriller starring Matt Dillon, Melissa Leo, Carla Gugino, and Shannyn Sossamon, with many other names including Terrence Howard and Juliette Lewis involved. You can read more about it here.
Updating throughout the day…
