Word: halmy
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...then, Halmi isn't aiming to see his productions deconstructed in Western Civ classes. In an era when TV is steeped in realism, Halmi's intent is to create lavish spectacles. Like his endlessly hyped 1994 mini-series Scarlett, the non-Margaret Mitchell-written sequel to Gone With the Wind, for which he conducted a $1 million worldwide search to find a star (ultimately actress Joanne Whalley-Kilmer), The Odyssey has been promoted with endless TV ads, a tie-in book and a Website game. The movie's budget went largely to transporting hundreds of cast and crew members...
...decade, arrogantly convinced that Jonathan Swift's 18th century political satire Gulliver's Travels was just waiting to be made into a mini-series starring Ted Danson, Halmi tirelessly pitched the idea to skeptical network executives until NBC succumbed two years ago. Improbably enough, Gulliver drew critical raves and wound up as last season's highest-rated mini-series. Motivated by that triumph, Halmi, whose curriculum vitae is not entirely without a smattering of titles like Ivana Trump's For Love Alone, has now made it a mission to devote himself almost exclusively to reinterpreting the classics for television...
Scheduled to air within the next year or so: TV-movie versions of Moby Dick and David Copperfield for the USA and Turner networks respectively, not to mention a sweeping Crime and Punishment mini-series for NBC. Meanwhile, Halmi is also working to bring versions of Animal Farm, The Raven and Dante's Inferno to the small screen...
...just had to convince the networks that I could do BBC-like programming but with entertainment," says Halmi, apparently a man whose idea of a good time does not include sitting down to six hours of that network's well-received version of Pride and Prejudice. "This is what the medium was invented for." He continues, "What television did to American young families is, it stopped them to read," he says in his broken second tongue. "It took the books out of kids' hands. I think we can make kids curious and get them to read again. I know...
...many of Halmi's productions, his latest, The Odyssey, seesaws--often uncomfortably--between earnestness and camp in an effort to reach the broadest possible audience. As he did in Gulliver's Travels, Halmi, who makes all the major casting decisions in his productions, has again married a middle-market star to some otherwise TV-unfriendly material. Armand Assante is our Odysseus here. (Conversely, Halmi has a penchant for pairing unnecessarily qualified talent to schlock product. In his 1983 TV movie Svengali, a young Jodie Foster played an aspiring pop star in love with her aging vocal coach, a part that...