My theory was that The Sopranos casting was great because you didn’t know who any of those people were. But at a certain point, it was working against them. The guys from That ’70s Show came in - not Ashton, but the other guys. Weiner There were famous people who came in to read. Weiner and AMC agree on hiring unknown actors. We used all of their crew.Ĭasting for the pilot begins in 2006. The pilot cost $3.3 million, and we did it in New York in the downtime when Sopranos was. Wayne So we self-financed the whole thing ourselves. Jeremy Elice (former vp original programming, AMC) We sent it out looking for potential partners and got some nice responses, but generally speaking it was, “Yeah, not for us,” and “Who the f- is AMC?” Sorcher Every possible reason on paper why this should not work was cited: It’s super slow, it’s advertising, everybody smokes, everybody’s unlikable and it’s period. It’s really low status, no money, and even if they do it, they’ve never made a show before, and you don’t want to be their first one.” I know you love this project, but don’t go. Weiner were like, “You’re going to be coming off The Sopranos. He called me after and said, “Thank God I’d never read this because I never would have written Mad Men.” When we had lunch with Matt for the first time, I gave him the book. This was a way to do Revolutionary Road, week in, week out. But I was a nobody screenwriter, and held out for bigger fish, which they got with Sam Mendes. So I hire Christina Wayne, who’s never done a thing in her life in terms of an executive.Ĭhristina Wayne (former senior vp scripted programming, AMC) Years earlier, I’d wanted to option Revolutionary Road. So your strategy becomes: Let’s go for quality. You want something that can’t be replicated elsewhere - like a Sopranos - because if you have a signature show, then you won’t be dropped. It’s like the lesser TCM, and I’m supposed to turn it into something. Rob Sorcher (former executive vp programming and production, AMC) I’d relocated to the East Coast, and I’m working at this network, AMC, that has a collection of shit-ass movies.

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