WTF!!!!!

EXCLUSIVE: Here is a great holiday gift for soap fans: I’ve learned that Prospect Park has revived its plan to continue cancelled ABC daytime dramas All My Children and One Life To Live online. I hear the company behind USA hit Royal Pains has inked deals with SAG-AFTRA and DGA for the soaps’ production, eyed to begin in the first quarter of 2013.

http://www.deadline....ine-web-series/

Catherine Hickland on FB:

Catherine Hickland

Sunday

You can have wonderful shows but if you do not have loyal viewers you've got nothing but a wonderful show that is going bye bye. Thank you for your incredible support for the genre. It is far from over, and this is because of your dogmatic and loyal support. I may not be in this anymore, but I grew up on soaps, spent my career acting on them, and
I know there is life left in your beloved shows, no matter what famous celebrity said "there was no more money to be made" We shall see Yes...we shall see!

Could #PP be using Fi-core or even non union writers to start off#AMC #OLTL reboots until deal with #WGA is final?

Could #PP be using Fi-core or even non union writers to start off#AMC #OLTL reboots until deal with #WGA is final?

Are we still on this? WGA or no WGA, if they use fi-core writers they don't have to remove them just because the WGA is or is not involved.

Are we still on this? WGA or no WGA, if they use fi-core writers they don't have to remove them just because the WGA is or is not involved.

I understand Fi-core. I guess Im wondering if they would go with non union writers til the WGA deal is final or could that hurt this project in the long run?

Edited January 8, 201312 yr by John

Are you going to plan an interview? If so I hope he can verify what Soaps Uncensored is true or not. I would also like to know how OLTL/AMC will be show and if they will be airing at the same time or if they will alternate.

Yes, Errol....you really should try and set up an interview with him.

I'd love to interview him as he seems like a REAL person from his tweets. I'm tired of those vague ass people in this business running things to the point that they don't know if its shit or chocolate pudding/ice cream coming out of their ass because they no longer see a difference (apologies for the graphic). In order for this genre to move forward and this project to get any traction, people need to be straightforward and just do it.

I understand Fi-core. I guess Im wondering if they would go with non union writers til the WGA deal is final or could that hurt this project in the long run?

If Prospect Park wants non-fi-core WGA writers they need to get a deal done with the WGA ASAP! If they feel confident with a fi-core writer, I see no reason for them to hire those people to get these shows off the ground (clearly with a bible in place) and then decide to use a non-fi-core writer afterward. People will only be paying the most attention when the shows premiere, so if they want a big bang they better have the best in the business spearheading these shows (fi-core or non-fi-core).

Could #PP be using Fi-core or even non union writers to start off#AMC #OLTL reboots until deal with #WGA is final?

Why do you hashtag? This ain't twitter!

Why do you hashtag? This ain't twitter!

I follow him on twitter and he posts the same messages their. I think he has it set up were everything he post here goes to his twitter account.

He worked on Heroes, one of the worst TV shows of the last 15 years, he has a background in wrestling, his credentials in production are thin and very marginal, and his tumblr looks and reads like a 7 year old Myspace page. By contrast, Linda Gottlieb had mounted major motion pictures. Forgive me for not seeing quite the same parallel.

Maybe this guy will turn out to be a genius. Right now it just seems like somebody needed to fill the spot so somebody's bro got a job.

Edited January 8, 201312 yr by Vee

I've barely read any X-comic from past 1989 or so but the Claremont years were very dense, complex, long stories, a great sense of history, large group of characters, and strong women. Everything soaps used t obe.

Now all I read from that shell of a company is Ms. Marvel (sorry, not calling her Captain Marvel). The X-Men are the reason I became a fan of hers so I guess the tradition goes on.

Yeah the Claremont years, especially when Byrd was co-writing early on (ie the infamous Pheonix saga), are about as soapy as American superhero comics got (and led to superhero comics being more soapy in general, since they were such a huge success). He started running out of ideas around '89 actually (and I guess was fired in '91 or so)--but even near the end when his run got muddled, it still has a lot of appealing melodrama and relationship stuff--he even managed to handle the first spin of New Mutants, and cross overs with it, well for much of the 80s (I think he left New Mutants after only three or so years)--this was of course before Marvel got greedy in the early 90s and there were suddenly like 40 different X Men titles all interconnected and it became one big money grubbing mess. I know Claremont returned to X Men several times, even recently--creating one series which is how he would have continued the story if he hadn't left in the early 90s, etc, but though I haven't read any of them yet, my HUGE X-men addicted friends all say they're mediocre to awful--I suppose it's a bit like when successful and popular headwriters for soaps later return to their own show and simply flop. I did like Joss Whedon's run (though it also had all the elements that sometimes bug me about Whedon's writing in any format) which was obviously influenced directly by Claremont's.

*geeks out* Otherwise I mainly read Japanese manga--and shoujo/josei (girls/womens) particularly, which really are long serials, albeit usually with an ending. A popular title like Nana (about two different college age girls and a rock band) has every single relationship trope you find in great soap opera--as well as cliffhangers, but at 21, 200 page collections, it's still not finished and continues to be serialized monthly in magazine format with the end nowhere soon in sight. That may be a bit more like the old Dickens' serialized novel format as they are written in chapters that come out monthly in magazines and then later revised and published as books, but do have an end in sight unlike most American soap operas (even those that *have* ended), though this end can get stretched out due to popularity. Then again, nearly everyone says that those Victorian era serialized novels are the prototype of soap opera (the term cliffhanger comes from a Wilkie Collins novel where one installment ended literally with the hero hanging from a cliff). And back to comics, Agnes Nixon herself said she didn't grow up listening to radio soaps, but did love the then popular serialized newspaper comic strips like Little Orphan Annie, which she would follow, but also make cut out paper dolls of to stage her own continuing dramas with.

But I do think certain comic book writers would make good soap HWs--depending on their style. I haven't read any of it, so cannot comment on quality, but I know the current X-Men writer (on one of the dozen or so X Men titles) who did the gay wedding with Northstar this year comes from a huge background of writing romance novels, which I found kinda interesting.

He worked on Heroes, one of the worst TV shows of the last 15 years, he has a background in wrestling, his credentials in production are thin and very marginal, and his tumblr looks and reads like a 7 year old Myspace page. By contrast, Linda Gottlieb had mounted major motion pictures. Forgive me for not seeing quite the same parallel.

Maybe this guy will turn out to be a genius. Right now it just seems like somebody needed to fill the spot so somebody's bro got a job.

I admit I wish I had never seen his Tumblr. Lots of stuff asking about where to party in various towns and find loose women. Then again he also seems to have had a lot of fights from people who think he's a "fag loving comie" and I did like his attitude in response to those.

The Wrestling doesn't bug me so much--I've never ever watched, but I know many people claim the storylines written up are soap-ish. Regardless, it looks like he was the main producer for some Heroes web series (I liked Heroes season one alright--though it was overated, but dropped it by the second episode of season 2). So if he's been hired purely to help with the web production aspect that might not be a bad thing--I never saw those webisodes so have no idea how good they looked. Just meaning if he doesn't have artistic say--and they leave that to the writers and the EP, I'm not really worried. (But, no, this is hardly a Gottlieb style coup).

He worked on Heroes, one of the worst TV shows of the last 15 years, he has a background in wrestling, his credentials in production are thin and very marginal, and his tumblr looks and reads like a 7 year old Myspace page. By contrast, Linda Gottlieb had mounted major motion pictures. Forgive me for not seeing quite the same parallel.

Maybe this guy will turn out to be a genius. Right now it just seems like somebody needed to fill the spot so somebody's bro got a job.

I hear you, just trying my best to look at this from both perspectives. If he [!@#$%^&*] up, he'll know about it soon enough.

So what revelations are we expecting next from this ongoing story of Prospect Park and its plans for soaps on the web?

This seems too much to hope for, but I am not as interested at this point even in who the other actors will be. I wanna know writers--at least HWs, a more concrete launch date (I'm fine with the month), and more about format (and Canadian availability like they promised last year...)

I was told by a friend that it just hit some other board that Florencia Lozano spilled to some fans at a stage performance that she was meeting with them, among other OLTLers. But grain of salt, obviously, on that game of Telephone.

Yeah the Claremont years, especially when Byrd was co-writing early on (ie the infamous Pheonix saga), are about as soapy as American superhero comics got (and led to superhero comics being more soapy in general, since they were such a huge success).

Actually, I think the soapiest comic story I've ever seen was the romance between the mutant Scarlet Witch and android Vision in Avengers, especially when it evolved into a triangle with Mantis, then into a quadrangle with the Swordsman (actually, I think it was a plant-god that took the Swordsman's corporeal form). That was the work of writers Roy Thomas and Steve Engelhart, some years before Claremont-Byrne's X-Men.