Diving into the suddenly resurgent miniseries/limited series marketplace, NBC announced on Saturday (July 27) that it was moving forward on new versions of “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Tommyknockers,” a Hillary Rodham Clinton project and a Mark Burnett-produced look at the Mayflower landing.
All four projects were announced as part of NBC’s Television Critics Association press tour day and follow Mark Burnett’s “A.D.: After the Bible,” which was announced several weeks back. And there is no timetable for any of the four newly announced projects, though there’s some high-profile talent set on both sides of the camera.
“Hillary” will be a four-hour miniseries and will be written and directed by Courtney Hunt (“Frozen River”). The plan is to focus on Clinton’s life and career from 1998 to the present and will star Oscar and Emmy nominee Diane Lane.
Also getting the four-hour treatment is a new version of Ira Levin’s “Rosemary’s Baby,” which was rather famously adapted by Roman Polanski. This time around, Scott Abbott (“Introducing Dorothy Dandridge”) will adapt the project, which apparently has been transferred to Paris.
Stephen King’s “Tommyknockers” was previously given miniseries treatment in 1993 on ABC. This time around, the alien-themed ensemble will be directed by Yves Simoneau (“Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”). NBC offered no details on the length of this miniseries.
Finally, while those three offerings are described as “miniseries,” NBC is calling Mark Burnett’s “Plymouth” a limited series. The look at the Pilgrims’ journey across the Atlantic and their early colonization will be written by Walon Green.