A&E eyes ties between titans

Lucas, Spielberg pic in the works for cabler

By DENISE MARTIN

An A&E special will examine the relationship between George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

DeBitetto

A&E is taking on a two-hour project about the relationship between filmmaking heavyweights George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

"Celluloid Titans" (working title), from Granada and exec producer Jody Brockway, will examine the friendly but competitive directors during the tipping points of their respective careers. Norman Snider is writing the teleplay.

A&E exec veep of programming Bob DeBitetto said the telepic is one of several longform events on the 2005-06 development slate, the rest of which he is expected to announce during the cabler's upfront presentation to advertisers todayThursday at Rockefeller Center.

Among other movies, A&E is working on a Johnny Cash biopic and a real-time retelling of the events that transpired aboard flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11.

On the series front, DeBitetto has greenlit "Random 1," a 10-episode reality series in which a SWAT team of do-gooders ambushes everyday folks and attempts to solve their problems, and a pilot focusing on the domestic life of rocker Gene Simmons. Production on both is under way.

Led by DeBitetto and A&E TV Networks president-CEO Abbe Raven, nonfiction programming including "Growing Up Gotti" and "Dog the Bounty Hunter" turned A&E into a buzzworthy top 10 cable net in total programming day last year. DeBitetto will showcase even more reality entries -- "Inked," "Criss Angel" and "Roller Girls" -- during the presentation. All three are on tap for a 2005 premiere.

Big ambitions

Having snatched up high-profile off-net dramas "CSI: Miami" and "The Sopranos" for fall 2006, net execs are predicting that A&E will be a top five cable network in the adults 25-54 and 18-49 demos by the end of next year.

"It's not about hubris," DeBitetto said. "It's about having a pretty good sense of where we'll go given the great investments we've made."

Cabler is already building on the ratings strides made last year: For the quarter, A&E is up 25% in 25-54, 31% in 18-49. Growth was fueled by highly rated debuts "Intervention" and "Knievel's Wild Ride" and season premieres of "Dog" and "First 48."

Oprah Winfrey dedicated an entire episode of her talker to "Intervention"; seg is expected to air in May.

As for "Celluloid Titans," DeBitetto, a former Turner exec, said he hoped the movie would achieve a tone similar to that in the 1999 TNT telepic about the rivalry between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, "Pirates of Silicon Valley."

"In this case, these two really did have a friendship. They compared notes. When Spielberg was having travails about 'Jaws,' Lucas was talking about 'Star Wars,' " he said.

A&E is also in pre-production on "Young Knights," a two-hour pic starring Ted Danson as an English teacher who inspires a class of under-privileged kids in South Bronx by teaching them chess. Allen Hughes ("Menace II Society") is directing the Fox TV Studios-produced project while Diane Nabatoff exec produces.

Also in the hopper

Other longform projects in development include the following:

• The Johnny Cash project will chronicle the singer's early years and his relationship with wife June Carter Cash. Allison Anders ("Sex and the City") is onboard to direct from a script by Joyce Eliason. Exec producers are Bernard Sofronski and Frank Konigsberg.

• "Flight 93," from Fox TV Studios and the Gerber Co., will be based on public records and document the final moments leading up to the tragedy. A&E said the movie will serve as a tribute to the heroic actions of the passengers who prevented the hijackers from using their plane as a missile. Nevin Shreiner is writing the teleplay.

• "Touch the Top of the World" is based on the memoirs of a man who went blind as a teenager but overcame odds to become a world-class mountain climber. Jaffe-Bronstein Films is producing from a script by Peter Silverman.

• Previously announced miniseries "Blackout," about a fictitious failure of a power grid in the heartland, is still being developed (Daily Variety, June 24).

Then there's "Random 1," which centers on a team of young people who wander the streets of America, seeking to help random, everyday people in need. Group is outfitted in a high-tech mobile production machine that will help them crack the problem while utilizing help in real-time from an online interactive audience pool.

In the presentation tape, the group helped a down-on-her-luck small-town stripper land an audition with a top modeling agency in Manhattan. Andre Miller and John Chester created the series, which Chester will exec produce.

"Part of the challenge as a programmer is finding a balance between what you do well and what works with the need to occasionally evolve. That is what attracted us to 'Random 1.' It felt a little different but still like it belonged on A&E," DeBitetto said.

Previously announced projects still in the development pipeline include "Single Again," "Little Red Man" and "Spying on Myself" (Daily Variety, Jan. 14).