Last January, long before the coronavirus pandemic hit the country – and Hollywood – the CW gave the series direct orders to its two strongest competitors for a pilot pickup. Superman and Lois and Walker. Four months later, the CW delivered direct orders to the series for two more projects, Kung Fu, which had done some pilot filming before the production shutdown in March across the industry, and The Republic of Sarah.
In January of this year, with the pandemic still raging amid another deadly wave of infections, the CW is seriously considering not doing pilots and instead going straight to the series, about 3-4, said the network’s president and CEO Mark Pedowitz to Deadline. But that will not signal a seismic shift in the CW’s broadcast network model, noted the veteran TV executive.
“The first part of the answer is: I believe in pilots, I believe that you see things in pilots,” he said. “Second part of the answer – we are facing a production problem and you may not have a real opportunity because, financially, it is easier to go straight to the series. So we can probably move in that direction again, not for any other reason, but to get them up and walking, because you don’t know what’s going to happen next; if you believe in a show, you should go ahead. I believe that the pilot process must be active, but it can be a financial issue. “
Broadcast development is designed to produce new series that replace the weakest of the existing network. But because of the pandemic-related production shutdown, the CW chose to launch its regular schedule in January instead of fall, so its original scripted series has yet to be released.
“The challenge for us is that we haven’t seen anything, we don’t know how they will perform,” said Pedowitz. “I won’t have a census until at least the end of March, in mid-April, when I need to. But this time we need to ask for things anyway. “
Because of all the uncertainty, the CW is expected to bring back the vast majority of its established series, possibly all, except the two whose pending end was announced, Supergirl and Black Lightning.
Pedowitz said he is now starting to get pilot scripts and it is too early to choose the pioneers. Some projects that have been gaining attention at the beginning include the one produced by Greg Berlanti Wonder Girl and another DC drama, Ava DuVernay Naomi.
In addition, the CW has two high profile planted spinoffs coming in, the Nancy Drew branch Tom Swift and Black Lightning by-product Analgesic. The rumors All Americans The backdoor spinoff pilot is also happening, I heard.
In addition, they launched 2020 pilots The lost boys, a longstanding passion project for Pedowitz, and Maverick, remain in contention, along with The 100 prequel, which was introduced in the final season of the mothership series. The network has been talking to HBO Max to be a potential partner in the project.