Seth Rogen, Billy Corgan, Kevin Smith Developing AMC Shows
UPDATE (5/13): Variety reports that AMC has picked up Billy Corgan’s as-yet-untitled wrestling series for eight one-hour episodes.
With Mad Men beginning its final season in April, AMC has revealed the first glimpse of its future programming beyond spinoffs of Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. The station has begun development on a number of series, ranging from scripted dramas and comedies to an unscripted “Untitled Billy Corgan Wrestling Project,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. In addition to the Smashing Pumpkins singer (possibly) smashing heads, AMC’s selection includes notable shows featuring the work of Seth Rogen, Kevin Smith and X-Files creator Chris Carter.
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Rogen, along with his This Is the End collaborators Evan Goldberg and James Weaver, is executive producing a series called Sober Buddies. Conceived by writers/executive producers Danny Comden (Pretty Persusasion) and Barry Schwartz, it tells the story of a washed-up pro surfer named Jonesy who has become a sober coach. Working with the son of a wealthy industrialist, the pair learn to rely on one another with one catch: Jonesy has fallen off the wagon.
Rogen is also working on an adaptation of the comic book Preacher for the network, also with Goldberg. Breaking Bad producer Sam Caitlin is also working on the series. The comic, which DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint published from 1995 to 2000, focused on a small-town Texas preacher named Jesse Custer possessed by an angel-demon hybrid calling itself Genesis.
Keeping with the comic-book theme, Kevin Smith, the star of the channel’s Comic Book Men series, is launching another series based on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast. Smith intends the show, currently in pilot stage, to be a late-night series. The recently renewed Comic Book Men is also getting a spinoff companion series based on its cast member Robert Bruce.
X-Files creator Chris Carter is developing a drama series, which he will write and produce, based on journalist Annie Jacobsen’s 2012 book Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base. THR describes the series as a conspiracy thriller that will reveal the true story of what many claim is a military storage site for a crashed UFO.
As for the unidentified fighting object known as Billy Corgan, his wrestling series will focus on his exploits as the creative director for Resistance Pro, an independent wrestling company.