Hollywood has now turned every book into a movie, every movie into a TV show, and every TV show back into a movie. Then they turned the movie into a Broadway musical. When they finished with that they turned board games into movies. Apparently they just ran out of board games because now they’re turning magazines into TV shows. NBC is developing a new series based on Cosmopolitan magazine.
We know what you’re thinking. There’s lots of “magazine” shows out there, so this must be like Access Hollywood or Extra, but all about women’s fashion and associated stuff, right? Nope, sorry. That would make too much sense. According to Variety it’s a scripted series that will follow the lives of fictional staff members of the very real magazine. Cosmo’s actual editor-in-chief Joanna Coles is even on board as an executive producer.
This is actually NBC’s second swing at a Cosmo-based series. Last year, writer/director Leslye Headland wrote a comedy script about a failed political blogger who goes to work as a sex columnist for a Cosmo-like magazine. Coales was part of that production team as well, so this appears to possibly be another take at the same material. The potential series is eyeing the 2016-2017 TV season as a potential launch period. Sarah Watson, an executive producer on Parenthood, is on board to write this one.
A TV series about people going to work in a place that not that many people care about anymore. Are we sure this isn’t being written by Aaron Sorkin? This really feels like the lovechild of The Newsroom and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. At least if that were the case, we’d know to expect some interesting dialogue. This show would likely have many of the same issues that Studio 60 had however. That was a TV show that wanted you to care about the success of a TV show. In the same vein, are viewers really going to get emotionally involved in falling circulation numbers and low subscription rates?
In all seriousness, it’s a workplace drama, not necessarily that different from any other. The real question here is: are they making a TV series that they’re hoping to make successful based on its relationship to the magazine, or is the hope rather that a successful TV show might help people remember that the magazine exists? Either option is possible. While nobody really reads magazines anymore, the Cosmopolitan brand is still a known brand. The series may be an attempt to find a few new homes for it.
Are you excited about a potential series based on Cosmopolitan magazine? Do you still read magazines? Let us know, we’re curious why.
