Word: hewitt
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...panel discussion on TV newsmagazines a few weeks ago, 60 Minutes founder and executive producer Don Hewitt took a defiant stand--against them. Rather than filling a need for more news programming, he argued, these shows are created mainly to fill gaps in the network schedule. Said he: "Behind every newsmagazine"--with a couple of exceptions, notably one show with a ticking stopwatch--"there's a failed sitcom...
That is about to change. Most likely in January, the show that was too good to clone will, at long last, produce an offspring. The second edition of 60 Minutes, expected to air on Tuesday or Wednesday night, has been created despite the very public opposition of Hewitt (who called it "a terrible idea") and most of his veteran 60 Minutes colleagues. He has now grudgingly acceded to what was probably an inevitability all along, agreeing to serve as a consultant on the new show, but only, he says, "when it doesn't take me away from...
...executive producer is Jeffrey Fager, who spent five years as a producer for 60 Minutes and has been a hard-news champion as executive producer of the CBS Evening News since 1996. The new show will have an entirely separate staff, which means it won't divert resources from Hewitt's operation; yet more than half its producers have worked at 60 Minutes, which presumably means the standards (as well as the look and format) will be carried...
...even if a teen film isn't a big hit, it can make money. This summer's Can't Hardly Wait (with Hewitt) grossed a tepid $25 million, but since it cost only around $10 million, everyone got to see some green. Everyone but the actors. "The teen genre is a godsend to studios, because they can use a bunch of young people in the place of one $20 million star," says Cary Woods, who produced Scream. "And the kids don't get gross percentages, so the studios get nice profits." It's not as if these kids were cobbling...
...fans of teen stars, "doing these things" means being part of a close celebrity cluster. "Everyone thinks it is like Melrose Place, that we all live in the same apartment complex and go to the same spots every night," says Hewitt, who will soon star as Audrey Hepburn in a TV mini-series. "That is so not the case. People ask me, 'What is Leo like?' Like I would know. Even at premieres, you go to the movie and the party, you feel uncomfortable, then you go home early and eat macaroni and cheese in your sweats...