D.C. skein gets HBO vote

Parker teams to bring sexy tome to cabler

By JOSEF ADALIAN

'Washingtonienne'

Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker is teaming with scribe Vanessa Taylor ("Jack & Bobby") for a half-hour HBO comedy based on "Washingtonienne," the steamy D.C.-set novel inspired by the real-life sexcapades of author Jessica Cutler.

It's the first project to emerge from Parker's Pretty Matches Prods. since the shingle set up shop at HBO last year. Parker will exec produce, with Taylor writing the pilot and exec producing.

There are no plans for Parker to act in the project. Cutler will serve as a consultant.

Cutler gained notoriety when D.C.'s Wonkette blog published excerpts from Cutler's online sex diary, in which she talked of trysts with up to six different men. She was fired from her job working for Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) as a result.

At the time, Cutler expressed disbelief that anyone cared about "such a low-level sex scandal."

"If I were sleeping with a Congressman, maybe, but I'm a nobody, and the people I'm writing about are nobodies," she told the Washington Post.

Within a year, Hyperion published "Washingtonienne," Cutler's novelization of her experiences. Parker's Pretty Matches then optioned the TV rights to the book and brought in Taylor to write and exec produce the pilot script.

Taylor and Parker are just beginning to flesh out how to bring "Washingtonienne" to the small screen, but Taylor predicted the final result will be "a controversial character."

"There have been a lot of morally ambiguous male characters finding acceptance on TV, but we haven't seen that with female characters," Taylor said, calling the character Cutler created for her novel emblematic of her generation in many ways.

"She's both hedonistic and very pragmatic," Taylor said. "She does what she wants, and if she can get something from it, terrific. (But) she's not using people brazenly. She just doesn't care what other people think."

In addition to co-creating "Jack & Bobby," UTA-repped Taylor wrote the FX pilot "The Big Lie" last year. Her other credits include "Alias," "Everwood" and "Gideon's Crossing."

Parker's "Failure to Launch" opened atop last weekend's box office with $24.6 million.