Abrams' Devotion to Star Trek Worries Warner Bros. TV

J.J. Abrams's upcoming Star Trek "is going to become his life" until it opens next year...but the people with whom he has a television deal aren't very happy about it.

Slate quoted an unnamed studio source as saying that Abrams intended to honour his commitment to Paramount to produce movies, but that has left Warner Bros. Television - with whom he also has a deal - nervous about the enormous sum he will be paid to produce television, reportedly $10 million a year.

The massive budgets for many fall television shows, according to the anonymous source, are "out of control. It is craziness." Among the shows said to be causing trouble for the networks are NBC's expensive Bionic Woman and CBS's Viva Laughlin. ABC's Pushing Daisies has run over budget as well - an overrun that Warner will have to cover.

A source at CBS told Slate that Warner has insisted on cost-cutting for Pushing Daisies and for CBS's vampire show Moonlight, meaning that each show will have fewer exteriors and visual effects. Other sources said that Peter Roth, the president of Warner Bros. Television, is feeling the pinch because the deal with Abrams has not yet produced any hits for the studio.

"Abrams is busy popping out movies for Paramount," according to the article, which claimed that several executives felt that Warner and Paramount were "insane" to have made such an expensive deal. "We're told that the networks have been put on alert to expect a chance to bid on a project bearing the J.J. Abrams label soon...just how much Abrams is required for that label to be applied is not clear."

The original article is here.

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