Showtime Greenlights Spielberg Comedy
DreamWorks Produces Series About Mother with Multiple Personality Syndrome
By R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 7/14/2007 3:54:00 PM MT
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Beverly Hills, Calif. -- Showtime will team up with Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks Television to produce a scripted comedy series about a mother with multiple personality syndrome.
The United States of Tara revolves around a wife and mother who at times also exhibits such split personalities as a male biker, promiscuous teenage girl or cake-baking homemaker, said Showtime president of entertainment Robert Greenblatt at the network’s Television Critics Association tour session here Saturday.
“Ever since I heard this idea -- Weeds meets Sybil -- I thought it was a perfect fit for Showtime since our hallmark is series with flawed main characters,” Greenblatt said.
Added Spielberg in a statement: “I have long admired the programming creativity of Bob Greenblatt and Showtime, so I am enormously pleased that we will be doing this show for them.”
The network also said it will launch in 2008 a sketch-comedy series featuring comedian Tracey Ullman.
While the network will add the two new series, Showtime will not bring back sophomore series Masters Of Horror and Sleeper Cell. Terrorist-tinged Sleeper Cell however could return as a special or short-form miniseries sometime in the near future, according to Greenblatt.
