TV Tidbits - April 8

Written by: Michael Hickerson (SoSF Assistant Editor)

Arnofsky Producing Pilot for AMC

In the past year, cable’s American Movie classics has branched out from repeats of classic films to offering viewers first-run original shows. The first two shows, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, received critical raves and were compared to the type of dramas usually associated with pay cable outlets HBO and Showtime.

Now the cable outlet is developing a pilot for a genre-series, Riverview Towers. Riverview Towers will follow the story of two families who move into an apartment building with paranormal activity.

The series is being produced by filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, the director of the acclaimed film The Fountain reports the Hollywood Reporter. The pilot script for Towers is by John J. McLaughlin, who penned the script for Aronofsky’s next movie, Black Swan.

A green light has not yet been given for the pilot.

Veteran genre-director Rob Bowman has signed to direct the pilot for ABC’s The Castle according to Variety.

Castle is the story of a horror author who consults with the New York Police Department and is executive-produced by Armayan Bernstein and Laurie Zaks.

Bowman has worked on a variety of genre shows, including Star Trek: The Next Generation, The X-Files and Night Stalker. Bowman also directed the X-Files movie.

After waiting over a year for new episodes, the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica got off to a good start ratings-wise Friday evening. The fourth season premiere of the show garnered a rating of 1.6 which translates into 2.1 million viewers. The ratings and viewers were the best numbers the show has seen since season two’s “Resurrection Ship, Part 2.”

In the coveted numbers for demographics, Galactica pulled in good numbers as well with all but 600,000 of the viewers being between the ages of 25 and 54.