Joel Surnow preps 'Kennedys' tale


10-hour drama project would 'unveil secrets' about family

By James Hibberd


Joel Surnow, the conservative co-creator of "24," is shopping a 10-hour miniseries on the Kennedy family.

The Canadian-based project from Muse Entertainment will be pitched internationally this weekend at the MIPTV confab in Cannes. The drama, titled "The Kennedys," promises to "unveil secrets" about the clan.

" 'The Kennedys' takes an inside look behind the secret doors of the White House, (and) the soiled and crooked steps it took to get there," the release reads. "It also tells the historical stories that are associated with the Kennedy era -- the Bay of Pigs, the Missile Crisis, the civil rights struggle, the mob connection -- each one told in the context of personal, Kennedy-family dramas."

Surnow is attached to executive produce the project, which has a planned budget of $30 million, with "24" partner Stephen Kronish, Michael Prupas of Muse Entertainment and Jonathan Koch and Steven Michaels of Asylum Entertainment. A major U.S. cable network is in talks to acquire the project for domestic release.

"This will be the most interesting family saga to be brought to the screen in a very long time," Prupas said. "It will be surprising, arresting and truthful ... with human drama at its core."

The right-leaning Surnow taking on the first family of liberal politics is sure to spark conversation, though producers assure that the project will be balanced.

"The series is neither a hatchet job nor a valentine," they said. "The Kennedys are portrayed not as mythic figures but as human beings, capable of both greatness on a grand scale and all-too-human frailty on a private one. It is a window onto the emotional minefield that made the Kennedys what they were."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3ie6e188c4e3413aa7e266e7dd96530929

Edited March 26, 200916 yr by Sylph

Ooooh, a new soap!

<p><span style="font-size:22pt;"><font face="Georgia">Joel Surnow Takes On ‘The Kennedys’</font></span>

<span style="font-size:7.5pt;"><b><font face="Georgia">By Dave Itzkoff</font></b></span>

<span style="font-size:10.5pt;"><font face="Georgia">A new miniseries about the Kennedy family from a biographer who is not exactly promising a varnished look at that political clan is headed to cable television. On Monday, the History channel said that it had ordered its first-ever scripted miniseries, "The Kennedys," from Joel Surnow, an Emmy Award-winning creator and former executive producer of the Fox series "24."

Mr. Surnow has hardly been shy about his conservative politics, and his tenure on "24" was criticized for its depictions of torture by American secret agents. But in a telephone interview Mr. Surnow said his personal views would not influence the film, which is written by Steve Kronish and directed by Jon Cassar, both veteran producers of "24."

"We're not making judgments about their political decisions," Mr. Surnow said. "This is a family story."

In these excerpts from that interview, Mr. Surnow talks about his vision for "The Kennedys," which is planned for broadcast in 2011.

Q. How did you become interested in the Kennedy family, and how far back does your interest go?

A. Well, I'm of the age that I remember quite clearly the Kennedys. I was born in the early 50s, so I remember them quite well, and came from a family that adored them. This project started as the brainchild of the History channel and got to me. I would say that I wasn't completely as well-versed in the real story of the Kennedys.

I knew what probably most of us know, through the events that transpired in the 60s, and I called my friend Steve Kronish, who is as smart and knowledgeable about the Kennedys as anybody I knew. He sat down in my backyard one afternoon, and started telling me the story of how Jack Kennedy became president, and all the specifics of Joe and Rose. It became a rambling, three-, four-hour conversation, and we realized that the way to tell the story is as the relationship between a father and his sons — the sons living out the father's ambition.

Q. You suggest that there's a version of the family history we think we know, and a version that you've come to learn. What do you think are some of the crucial details that most people are not aware of?

A. Anecdotally, there's just a million stories. Even the attitudes — the idea that Jack really wasn't ambitious, and he only stepped in after his brother Joe died. And his brother Joe died because Jack became a war hero first with PT-109. And the reason that Jack became a war hero is because he was having an affair with a woman and his dad had him shipped out to the Pacific. It goes on and on and on.

I didn't even know what the myth is. I just knew that when I was a kid, Jack Kennedy was president, and he was this glamorous guy and he had this wife. He seemed like a character of destiny, and he wasn't. He was a reluctant hero. This is a guy who wanted to teach at Harvard and have a good time. He didn't really want to get married, didn't really want to do anything all that ambitious. When his brother died in World War II, it was foisted upon him. It was demanded of him by his father. His father demanded that Bobby be attorney general. Jack didn't want him to be attorney general. They went to Clark Clifford and said convince my dad not to have Bobby be attorney general.

Q. In researching these stories, how do you differentiate between what's fact and what's been invented over the years?

A. There's a great quote that Michelangelo had about sculpting. He said when you sculpt a horse, you take a big clump of clay and then you cut away everything that's not the horse. That's what you do here. Each episode is driven by an emotional dynamic that's driving the characters. Everything that isn't that, that doesn't feed into that, becomes stuff you cut away.

For instance, the Cuban missile crisis, when we first sat down to break out that story, it's kind of dry. We didn't want that to dominate that episode, and we really found the personal story that's told, that the missile crisis stimulates and brings to the fore.

Q. Your personal politics are very well known. Is there any reason why audiences should be concerned about you producing a series about an iconic liberal political clan?

A. Well, Steve Kronish has got far different politics than I do. He is a Kennedy liberal Democrat from New York. It would be just as concerning if someone came in to write a Valentine about the Kennedys, or to protect them. We're not making judgments about their political decisions. This is a family story. It will cease to be an issue — it's something that I'll be asked about and I'll be answering this question 500 times when it comes out, but when people see it and realize what we're doing, it will feel like an irrelevant question after a while.

Q. In the press release announcing this project, it invokes a film like "The Godfather." Might it be hard for some viewers to get acclimated to thinking about the Kennedys in that way?

A. I also invoke "Remains of the Day," which is another personal story played out against a world event. "The Godfather" is brought up, not to suggest gangsters but that's an iconic story of a father and his sons, and power. The growth of the world of organized crime plays in the background, but what we're watching in that are these very personal stories. You can try to connect the dots and say what they're really saying is that the Kennedys are a bunch of gangsters, but that's far from the truth.

Q. Are there any lessons or experiences from your time on "24″ that can be applied directly to this project?

A. Every writer has a natural muscle, in terms of the things we like to do. One of the reasons I think "24″ came out of my participation was a sense of creating tension and pace. Putting people in pressure cookers and seeing how they react up against great stakes. That would be something that I think we'll see stylistically. There is tremendous pressure on Jack, not only from world events and Khrushchev and war, but from his own father, his wife and brothers and other characters as well.

Q. But not necessarily a ticking countdown clock during the Cuban missile crisis?

A. No, we're not going to do that.

Q. Do you have thoughts about casting yet?

A. We have thoughts, but it's a puzzle. We're going to try to cast Joe first, and we have a very short list that we're going after. We'll have something to announce sooner rather than later.</font></span>

<span style="font-size:7.5pt;"><b><font face="Georgia">http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/joel-surnow-takes-on-the-kennedys/?ref=television</font></b></span></p>

Edited December 16, 200915 yr by Sylph

hanks for posting. Very interesting read and ideas